Notes from the Field - When a sister dies at Casa Madre Mazzarello, the community comes together not just to mourn but to celebrate the sister's life, the nearness of Jesus and Mary in the moment of death, and the reunion of the soul with the heavenly Father.

Catholic sisters, church leaders and United Nations officials are hailing a U.N.-sponsored global compact on migration that provides a framework for more humane treatment of migrants, though also expressing disappointment that many countries did not approve the agreement or attend the international conference that led to its adoption.

Medical Mission Sr. Lilly Chunkapura is founder-director of Treatment Rehabilitation and Education of Drug Abuse, an addiction and counseling center in southern India. The center has helped thousands of addicts rehabilitate and improve their lives. Chunkapura spoke with GSR about the center and its work.

When and how can we carve out that silence, attentiveness to and awareness of life that is not tethered to our electronics? When we are able to do this, we reconnect with our own heart, spirit, soul. 

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has changed its mind about not seeking charges against two women religious who were found to have "misappropriated" a "substantial amount" of money, perhaps up to half a million dollars, from one of its Catholic schools.

More than 1 million people who took refuge in relief camps as unprecedented floods battered 12 of Kerala's 14 districts during July and August. At least 474 people died in the floods, most of them when the deluge was severest Aug. 15-20, says Fr. George Vettikattil, who heads the relief operations under the Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council, in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. The floods affected more than 5.41 million people, he estimates, based on data from various jurisdictions.

Rituals carry us through darkness and into the light during this season. They express the desire and longing that we feel and feed our joy as we wait together.

Celebration's Scripture for Life column – Metanoia is an approach that both hopes and works for the time when things will be as God created them to be. John the Baptist pointed out what that looks like in action.

Horizons - Recently, I've been avoiding a variety of things for some reason: Christmas card writing, cleaning out the refrigerator, paying bills, even getting a haircut. What's up with the delay, I ask myself? 

From Where I Stand: To address climate change, nothing much can happen to the world around us until something happens within us that is beyond money and power, that seeks global harmony.